1 Quercus: To prevent hyper-hyperspace driving you so mad that you harm yourselves, I'm going to lash you all to this mast.
2 Paris: Nice. If we survive this odyssey, it'll be all thanks to you, Quercus.
3 Iki Piki: Wait, why does the ship have a mast??
4 Quercus: Actually it's a sewer pipe, but "mast" sounds more romantic.

I was going to follow this up with another strip asking the question, "Why does the ship have a sewer pipe running from the ceiling to the floor when the ship only has one deck?" Then I made up a plausible answer: "Because the sewage recycling plant is in the ceiling, but the toilets flush downwards into the floor." And then I was a bit stuck for a suitable joke to end with, so I abandoned the idea and wrote something else instead (which you'll see in the next strip in this theme).

But if you want you can imagine Iki Piki asking that question and Quercus giving that answer, and then the Iki Piki saying, "Oh, I guess that makes sense."